Ice havoc

For many people who lived through last year's ice storm, the most vivid memory of the early morning hours that Friday is the gunfire-like sound caused by trees cracking and crashing to the ground.

“That's what it sounded like inside your house — you can imagine what it sounded like if you were outside,” said Paxton Highway Superintendent Michael Putnam.

For many weather-toughened New Englanders in a part of the Northeast prone to ice storms, the hours between about 10 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11, 2008, and daybreak Friday were one of the few times they were truly at the mercy of a weather event that would cause problems for a long time.

“It was just too dangerous,” he said last week as the storm's anniversary approached.

By that time, fallen trees blocked all of Paxton's approximately 50 miles of roads, and power had been cut off to the entire community.

“It was very scary,” Mr. Putnam said.

John M. Rogan, an associate professor of geography at Clark University in Worcester, who specializes in landscape ecology, said he went to Moore State Park in Paxton just after the storm hit and he was surprised by the amount of damage the inch-thick ice caused, primarily to oak and maple trees.

“I've been to locations where fires have hit and where there have been hurricanes, and this is the most serious damage I've seen,” said Mr. Rogan, who was been doing research for about 15 years.

He said freshmen in a landscape science seminar he is teaching went back to the state park in September and determined the part of the forest canopy had been reduced by 15 to 20 percent.

“That's pretty substantial,” he said.

Peter S. Cox, operations manager in National Grid's Leominster office, said the utility was also worried about the safety of its workers.

“The devastation was just amazing. In many cases, we had to go pole by pole,” said Mr. Cox, who lives in Lunenburg.

One of the worst affected areas was Wachusett Road in west Leominster, where more than 30 utility poles had to be replaced along the 3-mile street.

Many National Grid workers, who ended up working 18 hours a day to restore power, had difficulty reporting for duty early Friday morning.

“Coming in from my neighborhood, it was pretty apparent this was a major event,” Mr. Cox said.

David F. Duncan of Gardner, corporate vice president of facilities for the UMass Memorial — HealthAlliance hospitals in Leominster and Fitchburg, had to use a chain saw twice just to get off his street about 2 a.m.

As he drove east on Route 2 toward Leominster, Mr. Duncan said, he was forced to drive in the passing lane, trees heavy with ice brushing the side of his vehicle the entire way.

“I knew then we were in big trouble,” Mr. Duncan said. “The trees were leaning across the road. It was pretty clear this was going to be bad — long and bad.”

Auburn Firefighter Donald E. Contois realized things were bad as he and another firefighter drove up Prospect Street to respond to an electrical problem at a house on Eddy Street.

As the ladder truck rounded a corner about halfway up Prospect Street, a fallen tree blocked the road. Then another tree fell behind the truck, and a third tree fell on a nearby driveway, heavily damaging a parked car.

Workers from the Auburn Highway Department freed the fire engine when they arrived with a front-end loader to clear the road.

Elevation determined whether specific areas were cold enough to get ice, or warm enough to get heavy rain. One of the forgotten aspects of the historic storm was that 3 to 4 inches of rain caused heavy flooding in spots. Meteorologists said anyone living at 650 feet elevation or higher saw ice. Those living at lower elevations got rain and perhaps water in their cellars.

Although rain had started to freeze on some surfaces by sunset Thursday, the problem grew worse between 7 and 10 p.m., when a stiff northeast wind began to blow. During that time, the rain began to rapidly freeze on trees, enough to make them break.

Joseph W. Dellicarpini, a meteorologist in the Taunton office of the National Weather Service, said the wind brought in enough cold air to drop the mercury to just under 32 degrees. While areas north of Worcester were cold enough that the precipitation froze on the ground, the city and communities to the south and west were not cold enough for that to happen.

“I knew we were going to have some real problems when the sun went down,” Mr. Putnam said.

As bad as the well-forecast storm was, Mr. Dellicarpini said, it could have been worse. He said much of the heavy rain that fell during the height of the storm was not able to stick to the trees.

“You get your worst icing when there is a continuous light rain,” he said.

Many of the trees became heavily iced at the top, while there was very little ice near the bottom, causing them to become top-heavy. That was a good example of the capriciousness of the cold air that caused the icing, Mr. Dellicarpini said.

Spencer-East District Superintendent of Schools Ralph E. Hicks lives in a part of Spencer that didn't have problems with the ice.

“I was blessed,” he said, noting that many in town lost power for at least several days.

But the reports he got from other parts of Spencer led him to call off school about 4 a.m., and when he arrived at his office he discovered that his office and nearby David Prouty High School were without power.

School was closed in the district through Wednesday of the following week before reopening Thursday and closing Friday, when a snowstorm hit.

“With all the debris and the snow, many roads in town were barely passable,” he said.

Fitchburg Superintendent of Schools Andre R. Ravenelle said several schools were used as shelters. He said that for many residents, losing power was a health issue because they used medical equipment that needed power.

“We were right smack in the middle of it,” he said.

HealthAlliance spokeswoman Mary Lourdes Burke lives in what was an ice-free Westboro when the storm hit. While she acknowledged she had an inkling of what it was like in Leominster, she had no real understanding of it until she drove onto Route 2 in Harvard and saw a large tree blocking the highway.

She said it took about 15 men using several chain saws to eventually remove the tree.

“You had men in dress suits helping, and they eventually got the tree off the road,” she said.

While many people made it to work in the Leominster and Fitchburg hospitals, others couldn't, and the overnight shift was held over.

You can plan for emergencies, Mr. Duncan said, but some unanticipated things do happen.

One of the generators in the Fitchburg hospital, for example, ran out of engine oil, and Fitchburg State College provided the hospital with a 55-gallon drum of oil, he said.

Echoing the feeling of many, Paxton's Mr. Putnam said ice storms are a fact of life in the hilly towns northwest of Worcester, but he doesn't ever want to see a repeat.